Cut To The Chase. Stop the Rhetoric. It's Time For Answers.

I'm tired of the sound bites from the so-called Conservatives. I'm tired of hearing how tax cuts will solve all problems. We can't pay the interest on our Treasury Bills owned by the Chinese or other foreign governments with tax cuts. The Chinese want cash payments.

I've asked a series of questions below. "Tax cuts" are not an appropriate response to most of the questions asked below. They are designed to require discussions of real solutions.

It's time for the trickle-down economists, free market (i.e., too big to fail) "Conservatives" and their Tea Bag friends to weigh in with some specific answers. Liberals and progressives and blue dogs need to provide new ideas as well.

Feel free to ask your conservative friends for "solutions" instead of name-calling and fear mongering. "No" is not a policy. "No" followed by a tired old talking point sound bite--about smaller government, lower taxes and more freedom-- isn't a sufficient answer for these hard times, either. Changing the subject is not an answer, either.

More importantly, ask everyone applying for the job of our next Senator or Congressperson, their specific answers to the following questions:

1. Are you in favor of cutting or increasing military spending? And whichever answer you pick, please state by what dollar amount you want to either cut or increase the spending annually?

2. Are you in favor of keeping our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? If yes, for how many years? How are you going to pay for that cost without borrowing?

3. Are you for or against increasing the use of private military contractors throughout our military?

4. Are you for or against offshore drilling off the coast of Florida and throughout the Gulf of Mexico?

5. If you are in favor of offshore drilling, are you in favor of controls regarding: (a) who does the drilling and (b) where they will sell the oil?

6. If you are in favor of no regulations on offshore drilling, how can you guarantee that drilling off our coasts will: (a) provide oil to be used in the United States, or (b) reduce the price of gas here, or (c) not endanger our national security?

7. If every oil deposit known to exist in the Gulf of Mexico was available tomorrow to be pumped, do you know for how many days the oil reserves in the Gulf would fulfill the daily demand of the United States' oil consumption? (I'll give you the answer to this one because it is surprising. According to a report recently published by the non-partisan Collins Center For Public Policy, the Answer is that all of the Gulf would only produce enough oil to last 7 days at the rate of current U.S. consumption of 20 million barrels per day.)

8. Are you in favor of keeping Medicare in its present form? If so, how do you propose to fund Medicare for the next 50 years?

9. If you are not in favor of keeping Medicare in its present form, how would you change it and when would your changes go into effect?

10. Are you in favor of keeping Medicaid in its present form? If so, how do you propose to fund Medicaid for the next 50 years?

11. If you are not in favor of keeping Medicaid in its present form, how would you change it and when would your changes go into effect?

12. Are you in favor of keeping Social Security in its present form? If so, how do you propose to fund Social Security for the next 50 years?

13. If you are not in favor of keeping Social Security in its present form, how would you change it and when would your changes go into effect?

14. What programs or areas of the Federal budget would you cut to pay down the National Debt?

15. How quickly would you pay down the national debt?

16. How do you propose to raise additional revenue to pay down the national debt?

17. What freedoms do you believe are being infringed upon by the Federal government, and what do you propose to do to correct that?

18. Regarding the freedoms that you believe are being infringed upon by the Federal government, please list all of those which were enacted since January 20, 2009.

19. How are we going to make health care affordable and keep costs from going up at 10 times the annual rate of inflation (which is what we have been experiencing each year for the last 10 years?)

20. How do you propose to create jobs in America?

21. What financial system reforms are you in favor of ?

22. What renewable sources of energy do you support and how do you suggest that we transition toward use of more renewable sources of energy? What role, if any, should the Federal government play in this transitioning?

There is no more time to rely upon the same old talking points. Don't let them get away with it. Make them answer these questions. Don't let them change the subject.

These problems aren't going away every time they change the subject.

Demand that the media ask these questions daily and in all candidate debates, and then demand answers.